Subject: Red-shouldered Hawk at Conboy NWR
Date: Sep 13 09:48:24 2004
From: Washington Birder - washingtonbirder at hotmail.com


Thursday found two juv. Red-shouldered Hawks at Conboy NWR south of Glenwood along B Z Corner - Glenwood Road. One was near the parking area where we walked out into the hay field and looked back into the trees where we refound the first one that we had seen fly right over us near a canal that goes under the road. The second bird was northeast of here hunting from small trees. Was wondering if they could be nestlings from this past years hatch with both within a mile of each other.

Other birds seen were 14 Wild Turkeys just south of the refuge on the same road. Noted lots of small flocks of Clark's Nutcrackers passing through. In the parking lot area we had 2 Warbling Vireos, a Yellow Warbler, 2 Brown Creepers, a Red-naped Sapsucker, small groups of Red Crossbills (type #3), Evening Grosbeaks, Vaux's Swifts, all 3 nuthatches, hoards of Pine Siskins, 4 molting Sandhill Cranes and quite a few American Kestrels which were feeding on the grasshoppers. Noted several American Bitterns with one feeding on tadpoles which were already legged but had not lost their tails.

The Red-shouldered Hawk is very tough to find in eastern Washington so was glad to be part of the birder's group from Klickitat County. We looked for shorebirds, but only found Wilson's Snipe.

On the way back to Vancouver I stopped at Bass Lake near North Bonneville to look for shorebirds. None! Not even a Killdeer, but did find 2 Lewis's Woodpeckers, a good bird for Skamania County.

Ken Knittle
Washington Birder newsletter
2604 NE 80th Street
Vancouver, WA 98665
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